The historical development of the natural law theory involves a lot of concepts from different people whom are termed as naturalists. People such as Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Rousseau, John Finnis, Cicero etc. They all have different concepts even though some of the naturalists acknowledged and some disagreed with the Ancient philosophers, somehow it is contradicting. With these concepts from
Political thinkers have often regarded that the human nature is chaotic in nature and that individuals cannot exist without the politic. Almost all political philosophers acknowledge that the only way to escape the state of nature is through a government which has some method to enforce compliance with laws and some degree of centralization. There can be two reasons for obeying a law: a prudential and a moral reason. The prudential reasons to obey the law doesn’t prescribe a moral duty upon the
Thomas Hobbes famously said that in the "state of nature", human life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". http://www.worldhistory.biz/sundries/31769-thomas-hobbes-on-the-state-of-nature-quot-solitary-poor-nasty-brutish-and-short.html#sthash.HDepVYCr.dpuf In the absence of political law and order, everyone would have the freedom to do as they pleased and thus the freedom to plunder, rape, and murder; there would be an endless war of all against all. To avoid this, free men contract